Contact info

For Library research help, please contact Moninder Lalli, Librarian for Sociology / Anthropology by email (moninder_lalli@sfu.ca) or Ask a librarian.

Essay  

Start Your Research Here - This page gives you an overview of the research process, or in other words how to find materials for your essay.

Selected encyclopedias and handbooks

Use encyclopedias, handbooks or textbook for overviews, definitions, and to identify key authors or concepts.  

• Ethnic groups of South Asia and the Pacific : an encyclopedia 
• Handbook of ethnography
• Inequality studies from the global South
• Routledge companion to digital ethnography
• Routledge handbook of contemporary India 
• Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Pakistan 
• Routledge handbook of gender in South Asia
• Routledge handbook of South Asian migrations
• Routledge handbook of the history of colonialism in South Asia 
• Routledge Handbook of the Indian Diaspora
• Routledge Handbook of the South Asian Diaspora
• Routledge Handbook of South Asian migrations 
• Routledge handbook of South Asian religions
• Routledge international handbook of ethnographic film and video
• Routledge International Handbook of Race, Class and Gender

For more, try Anthropology guide's "Background information"

Databases for journal articles

For journal articles, it is useful to search for databases for the discipline for which your are writing your essay.

How to find journal articles tutorial. 

What is a scholarly (or peer-reviewed) journal?

If the full-text of the article is not available within the database then use the "Get@SFU" link to find it or to initiate an inter-library loan request.

Anthropology Focused Databases

• Anthropology Plus
  • The resource indexes material relating to anthropology and archaeology and many of the journals by the American Anthropological Association
    • Use the Descriptor term, Ethnography then add your other subject terms describing your topic
      • DE "Cultural anthropology", also provides interesting cultural studies, but check with your professor to see if these are acceptable as "ethnographies"
• AnthroSource -- Full-text access to journals produced by the American Anthropological Association

For a longer list, try  Anthropology Databases

Non-Anthropology Databases

• Bibliography of Asian Studies - indexes journal articles and books focused on Asia and South Asia.
• Communication and Mass Media Complete  - Important database for "popular culture" and "media" topics.
• Sociological Abstracts -- Sociological aspects of twenty-nine broad topics, including anthropology.
  • first search for "anthropol* - limit to "Publication title -- PUB" index
  • then add your other concepts in other search boxes
• Social Sciences Full Text -- access to English-language social science journals.
  • first search for "anthropol* - limit to "SO Journals name" index,
  • then add your other concepts in other search boxes
• JSTOR
  • Searchable, archival collection of core scholarly arts, humanities and social sciences journals, except for the most current 5-7 years of a journal since this is an "archival" collection.
  • Note: Use "advanced search" and limit the search to "anthropology" subset of journals
    • it will accept the truncation symbol.
    • since full text is being searched, you may consider using putting quotation marks around your "phrase words" to ensure that the words appear together.​
• Academic Search Premier

Find books in the library

How to use the Library Catalogue  [guide]

Do a Library Catalogue search to see if the Library owns or provides access to the sources that you've identified. 

For known items it is best to check using "Browse by title" icon.

Search by topic, using Basic or Advanced Search

Books on your topic and ethnographic

Use either 'ethnography' OR 'ethnology' in combination with the name of the people you're researching or the geographic region in which they live.

Note: In the searches below, you can limited results to "Online Resources only" and "Resource type" of "Books"
In addition if you want to find a book or book chapters, you can limit the results to "Subjects" of "ethnography" and also "ethnology"

• (south asia*) AND (ethnogr* OR ethnolog*) 
• (Afghanistan OR Bhutan OR Maldives OR south asia* OR Sri Lanka* OR Bangladesh* OR Nepal* OR Pakistan OR India) AND (ethnogr* OR ethnolog*)
• (Afghanistan OR Bhutan OR Maldives OR south asia* OR Sri Lanka* OR Bangladesh* OR Nepal* OR Pakistan OR India) AND anthrop*
• (Afghanistan OR Bhutan OR Maldives OR south asia* OR Sri Lanka* OR Bangladesh* OR Nepal* OR Pakistan OR India) AND (economic liberali* OR economic reform*)
• (Afghanistan OR Bhutan OR Maldives OR south asia* OR Sri Lanka* OR Bangladesh* OR Nepal* OR Pakistan OR India) AND (transnational OR global) AND (popular culture OR mass media)
• (south asia* OR Sri Lanka* OR Bangladesh* OR Nepal*) AND (transnational OR global) AND (represent* OR portray* OR perspective*) AND (popular culture OR mass media)
• (Afghanistan OR Bhutan OR Maldives OR south asia* OR Sri Lanka* OR Bangladesh* OR Nepal* OR Pakistan OR India) AND (colonial* OR neoliberalis* OR developmental*)
• (Afghanistan OR Bhutan OR Maldives OR south asia* OR Sri Lanka* OR Bangladesh* OR Nepal* OR Pakistan OR India) AND diaspora*
• (Afghanistan OR Bhutan OR Maldives OR south asia* OR Sri Lanka* OR Bangladesh* OR Nepal* OR Pakistan OR India) AND (daily OR everyday life)
• (Afghanistan OR Bhutan OR Maldives OR south asia* OR Sri Lanka* OR Bangladesh* OR Nepal* OR Pakistan OR India) AND (caste OR class)
• (Afghanistan OR Bhutan OR Maldives OR south asia* OR Sri Lanka* OR Bangladesh* OR Nepal* OR Pakistan OR India) AND (gender OR women OR LGBT* OR queer*)
• Pakistan AND (ethnogra* OR ethnolog*)

Combine different concepts using AND
Combine same concepts using OR
Use quotation marks to search for a phrase
Use brackets for synonyms
Use asterisk (*) for different endings of words

Use pulldown menu and select, "Source Types" as "Books"

Note:  For Catalogue Search, when combining concepts, use CAPITAL letters ( "OR", "AND")

Selected books

• Afghanistan : a cultural history  [print]
• Bhutan : the unremembered nation. Vol. 1, Community and livelihood 
• Borderland Lives in Northern South Asia
• Articulating Islam: Anthropological Approaches to Muslim Worlds
• Cities in South Asia 
• Coming out as Dalit : a memoir of surviving India's caste system
• Communities on the margin : disadvantaged populations in Indian society
• Contours of South Asian social anthropology : connecting India and Nepal
• Culture change in India : intellectual traditions, institutions and regions 
• Development, Neoliberalism, and Islamism in South Asia: The Case of Bangladesh
• Diaspora Writes Home: Subcontinental Narratives
• Downwardly Global: Women, Work, and Citizenship in the Pakistani Diaspora
• Economic reform processes in South Asia : toward policy efficiency
• Ethnographic Narratives As World Literature: Uneven Entanglements in European and South Asian Writing
• Everyday life in South Asia 
• Exploring Indian Modernities: Ideas and Practices
• Ethnographic research in the social sciences 
• Feminist peace and the violence of communalism : community, gender and caste in India 
• Fishing, Mobility and Settlerhood: Coastal Socialities in Postwar Sri Lanka
• Fragments of the Afghan frontier [print]
• Gender in modern India : history, culture, marginality 
• Gender, 'Race' and Patriarchy : A Study of South Asian Women
• Gender, sexuality, decolonization : South Asia in the world perspective 
• Gendered geographies : space and place in South Asia [print]
• Global Digital Cultures : Perspectives from South Asia
• Global South Asians : introducing the modern diaspora 
• Hidden Wars: Gendered Political Violence in Asia's Civil Conflicts
• Hindu nationalism in the Indian diaspora : transnational politics and British multiculturalism 
• Impact of Education in South Asia: Perspectives from Sri Lanka to Nepal
• India Transformed : Twenty-Five Years of Economic Reforms
• Lhotsampa People of Bhutan: Resilience and Survival
• Making and Meaning of Relationships in Sri Lanka: An Ethnography on University Students in Colombo
• Middle class in neo-urban India : space, class and distinction
• Nationalism, Terrorism, Patriotism: A Speculative Ethnography of War
• Neoliberalism, urbanization, & aspirations in contemporary India
• New South Asian feminisms : paradoxes and possibilities
• Other #MeToos
• Pakistan : politics, economics, culture, people [print]
• Pashtun identity and geopolitics in Southwest Asia: pakistan and afghanistan since 9/11
• Political economy of South Asian diaspora : patterns of socio-economic influence [print]
• Political Economy of Social Change and Development in Nepal
• Precarious Diasporas of Sikh and Ahmadiyya Generations: Violence, Memory, and Agency
• Religion, Extremism and Violence in South Asia
• Rethinking New Womanhood: Practices of Gender, Class, Culture and Religion in South Asia
• Smart cities and the poor : towards an agenda for inclusive urbanization in India
• Soap Operas, Gender and the Sri Lankan Diaspora: A Transnational Ethnography in Australia and Sri Lanka
• Social-cultural anthropology [print]
• Sociology of South Asia: Postcolonial Legacies, Global Imaginaries
• South Asia in transition : an introduction to the social anthropology of a subcontinent
• South Asian transnationalisms : cultural exchange in the twentieth century
• Television publics in South Asia : mediated politics and culture 
• Tolerance, secularization, and democratic politics in South Asia
• Understanding Afghanistan : history, politics and the economy 
• Urban Pakistan : frames for imagining and reading urbanism [print]
• Urban Utopias: Excess and Expulsion in Neoliberal South Asia
• Urbanization and Regional Sustainability in South Asia : Socio-economic Drivers, Environmental Pressures and Policy Responses
• Voices of the Rohingya People: A Case of Genocide, Ethnocide and 'Subhuman' Life

Browse subjects

For specific groups or regions, try "Ethnology" and the name of a country or geographic area.
Browsing by the Subject Heading:  "Ethnology" and the subheading(s) for different geographic region(s) of the world

• Afghanistan -- Economic Conditions
• Anthropological ethics
• Anthropologists
• Anthropology -- Fieldwork
• Anthropology -- Methodology
• Bhutan -- Economic Conditions
• Ethnologists -- Biography -- Dictionaries
• Ethnology
• Ethnology - (geographic area)
• Ethnology -- Fieldwork
• Ethnology -- Afghanistan
• Ethnology -- India
• Ethnology -- Methodology
• Ethnology -- Nepal
• Ethnology -- Pakistan
• Ethnology -- South Asia
• Ethnology -- Sri Lanka
• [name of country -- Economic Conditions]
• India -- Economic Conditions
• Nepal -- Economic Conditions
• Pakistan -- Economic Conditions
• Urbanization -- India
• Women -- India -- Social conditions
• Women -- South Asia -- Social Conditions

Government publications

• CIA World Factbook - A good source for basic multi-country data covering key topics such as communications and the economy.
• ELDIS - 1996 to June 2024 Research and policy documents on international development issues. 
  Click on "countries" to find reports by countries in South Asia: 
  • Aghanistan
  • Bangladesh
  • Bhutan
  • India
  • Maldives
  • Nepal
  • Pakistan
  • Sri Lanka
• OECD iLibrary - Publications from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, including country studies, forecasting publications, reports, periodicals, and socio-economic databases. Topics covered include agriculture, developing economies, education, employment, energy, environment, migration, social issues, and sustainable development.
• UNDATA (Formerly known as "UNSTATS - United Nations Statistical Common Database". - check "country profiles" and "topics" links. - comparative data from many UN sources.
• UN Women - Centralized hub for reports on world's women.
• World Development Indicators - Direct access to more than 600 development indicators with time series for 208 countries from 1960. Can select multiple variables to create exportable reports, charts or maps. Go to the "Data" tab in the left column. You can look at "key indicators" for country or region
• World Economic Forum
  • The Global Gender Gap Report (annual)

Google custom searches (IGOs)

• IGO Search
  International governmental organizations (IGOs) are organizations made up of more than one national government—examples include NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and the WHO (World Heath Organization). The governments are the members. IGO Search is a Google Custom Search that searches across IGO websites
• Search tips:  synonyms on parentheses, no need for "AND" to add a second concept. Add "intitle:" in front of a search term to have that term(s) to be in the "title" of the document
  • (South Asia OR India OR Pakistan OR Nepal OR Afghanistan OR Maldives OR Bhutan OR Sri Lanka OR Bangladesh) (colonial OR neoliberal OR development) (discourse OR legacy)
  • intitle:(South Asia OR India OR Pakistan OR Nepal OR Afghanistan OR Maldives OR Bhutan OR Sri Lanka OR Bangladesh) (colonial OR neoliberal OR development) (discourse OR legacy)

Library guides

• Library Research Tutorials. Animated tutorials on search techniques for finding books and journal articles.
• Annotated bibliographies
• Evaluating sources 
• How to find journal articles.
• Library Catalogue search guide.
• What is a scholarly (or peer-reviewed) journal?
• What is plagiarism?  Guide to common forms of plagiarism and how to avoid them.
• Library Research Tutorials. Animated tutorials on search techniques for finding books and journal articles
• How to place an Inter-Library Loan request - to obtain books and articles from another library (free).

Writing help

• Student Learning Commons
  • Academic writing resources
    • Writing for university
    • Academic writing - a list of over 200 books.
• Book a consultation

Selected resources on writing

Ethnology -- Authorship (books on writing ethnographies)

• Writing up qualitative research 
• Writing ethnography